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I don't think that actual history supports that assertion. 30 years ago, cellular networks were really taking off and people were starting to use mobile phones

by inejge 2y ago

I don't think that actual history supports that assertion. 30 years ago, cellular networks were really taking off and people were starting to use mobile phones en masse. Always on, pinging the base stations, delivering that data to equally sociopathic and beholden carriers. The public was not up in arms. What's changed in the meantime, aside from the richness and granularity of location data, is awareness of the potential for the abuse of it all, supported by well-publicized incidents. Which is a good thing; the public is quite tolerant of invisible machinations, as long as they remain distant and abstract.

ramses0 2y ago
No. The _ability_ to exploit it "en-masse" didn't exist 30 years ago. Random dell advertisement shows 16mb RAM (max 64mb), and 450mb HD. https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/49o9tm/dell_optiplex_magazine_advertisement_from_1994/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/49o9tm/dell_opti... Keep in mind, these are Mb, not Gb! Nowadays with a raspberry pi and a 128gb SD card you can go to town on "all location data for the last year for all American cell phones". Back in 1994, even coordinating reliable central writes of all that location data would have been extraordinarily complicated, and there was not yet a panopticon appetite that would attempt the endeavor without a heavily funded psychopath behind it. As "we the industry" have gotten more capable (and comfortable) processing huge quantities of data (eg: post map-reduce), and the hardware requirements have fallen to "my cell phone could compute it in an hour", the risk has increased tremendously. Same story with muskets, cannons and tanks vs AK-47's. "Gun Control" in the musket era is materially different than an era of AK-47's and drones. Same with data processing.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  Well, in the musket era, private individuals owned ships with canons that could reach right into the middles of cities.

by inejge 2y ago

ramses0 2y ago

No. The _ability_ to exploit it "en-masse" didn't exist 30 years ago. Random dell advertisement shows 16mb RAM (max 64mb), and 450mb HD. https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/49o9tm/dell_optiplex_magazine_advertisement_from_1994/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/49o9tm/dell_opti... Keep in mind, these are Mb, not Gb! Nowadays with a raspberry pi and a 128gb SD card you can go to town on "all location data for the last year for all American cell phones". Back in 1994, even coordinating reliable central writes of all that location data would have been extraordinarily complicated, and there was not yet a panopticon appetite that would attempt the endeavor without a heavily funded psychopath behind it. As "we the industry" have gotten more capable (and comfortable) processing huge quantities of data (eg: post map-reduce), and the hardware requirements have fallen to "my cell phone could compute it in an hour", the risk has increased tremendously. Same story with muskets, cannons and tanks vs AK-47's. "Gun Control" in the musket era is materially different than an era of AK-47's and drones. Same with data processing.

Brian_K_White 2y ago
Well, in the musket era, private individuals owned ships with canons that could reach right into the middles of cities.